


The Case of the Doctor, the Detective, and the Star Spangled Man With A Plan

by Darkwood_Princess



Series: To Dust or To Gold [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Holmes and Watson, The Good Fight, all the legends are true, honestly, howlies to the rescue, need to stop getting in trouble, no need to go fight, you're old men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10462809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkwood_Princess/pseuds/Darkwood_Princess
Summary: There is absolutely nothing familiar about the battered elderly gentleman chained to a table with a death machine that is somehow hooked up to a beehive of all things, humming along  to a countdown dramatic enough to make it the obvious work of Schmidt’s personal scientists. And yet the look on Falsworth’s face is as if someone had dragged the King of England into this nonsense and Steve knows it is worth asking more questions when Dernier, Jones, and Dugan are not actively trying to bring the whole castle compound down around their ears.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I may have mixed up which war His Last Bow took place in, but I did my research and Holmes and Watson could plausibly have been in their 90s by the time of this story anyways and I get the feeling that they aren't the type to "go gently into the good night". 
> 
> Also, there really were two different illustrators of the Canon, giving another reason for Steve not really recognizing our intrepid duo. Kudos to those who figure out which Holmes story the Commando's reference when they swamp the boys with questions.

There is a momentary look of shock and reverence on Falsworth’s face as they kick open the Hydra dungeon to rescue its sole occupant, a look which manages to momentarily freeze Steve in his tracks before he’s moving again to help out the injured captive. There is absolutely nothing familiar about the battered elderly gentleman chained to a table with a death machine that is somehow hooked up to a beehive of all things, humming along  to a countdown dramatic enough to make it the obvious work of Schmidt’s personal scientists. And yet the look on Falsworth’s face is as if someone had dragged the King of England into this nonsense and it is worth asking more questions when Dernier, Jones, and Dugan are not actively trying to bring the whole castle compound down around their ears.

(Privately he wonders what Europe’s obsession with castles is, a small reminder that he grew up in a place where a room to oneself was the height of luxury and even men of Howard Stark’s stature didn’t own mini fiefdoms, capable of requiring a small city to run smoothly. Sure they owned manors, but did a person really _need_ a castle?)

Behind him he hears the characteristic pop of Bucky’s rifle as he takes down some Hydra henchman too dumb to get out of the way of a rescue mission and he prays quietly that whatever had stunned Monty at first is something he can get over quickly because there are still more than enough men around to kill all of them.  Even a supersoldier could be disintegrated with enough effort, though Steve wasn’t willing to test the strengths of his body on that front anytime soon.  

“Wait, you must also get my friend. He’s being held in the adjacent dungeon,” the man’s voice was cultured, British, and strained, as if he hadn’t been using it for a while or, conversely, had been using it too much. Steve wondered just how much torment the Nazi’s had rained on the man limping gamely along, leaning against Falsworth as sparingly as possible.

He’d never quite understood the English concept of the stiff upper lip, but pride, that was another thing entirely.  Even a poor boy from Brooklyn had pride. Sometimes an overabundance of it, if he were entirely honest with himself.

The door of the adjacent dungeon folded like poorly designed cardboard under his fist, revealing a stocky gentleman chained to the walls, his face decorated with a still fresh black eye and his clothes ripped and dirtied. His impressive mustache reminded Steve of Dugan, but the noise he made when he caught sight of the man leaning against Falsworth was a noise he’d often heard from Bucky when Steve had overexerted himself in the not so distant past, a noise that screamed _you-idiot-what’d-you-do-to-yourself-this-time_.

“Holmes, you look horrible!”

Holmes, Steve noticed, ignored the declaration long enough to grab the keys off the wall and unlock his friend’s shackles. His muttered, “My dear doctor, it’s not like you’re in a terribly better condition,” was low enough that only his friend and Steve heard, while Falsworth guarded the door and Steve puzzled out just why the name was so familiar to him.

His attempts to remember the significance of the name were torn to pieces as Bucky slammed into the room, chased by at least a dozen Hydra agents and the moment was lost in the haze of terror and adrenaline that was a firefight. Logically Steve knew that at some point he should be used to warfare, to violence and destruction, and yet a part of him remembered Erskine’s admonition to ‘stay a good man’ and in his book, a good man could never get truly used to violence.

Regardless of the way he looked, the Doctor was a decent shot as he scooped up a fallen Hydra agent’s weapon and helped dispatch the remaining agents with an aim at least as good as Bucky’s.

(That in itself screamed military of some sort, that there was more to the aged pair than they were saying, and for the moment, as they ducked through hallways, racing against the clock of Dernier’s increasingly smaller fuses – yet somehow nastier explosions - Steve wondered again just who they’d rescued.)

There was no time to relax until they castle itself was folding inward under the power of Howard’s latest souped up grenade/bomb combo and their vehicle was rattling along as fast as Dugan could push it, the wood’s flashing by in a blur of dark trees and blinding snow.  Next to him Gabe was staring at their two guests with a sort of weary incredulity, as if thinking _ok a supersoldier is one thing, but this is quite another_.

It was, of course, Bucky, gregarious and nosy, who broke the ice.

“So, now that you two are in no danger of being Hydra pincushions, mind telling us who exactly ya are?”  

The Doctor started slightly, as if he were no longer used to being unknown to the general public, but smiled nonetheless. “My sincerest apologies, I am Dr. John Watson and my companion is the inestimable Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

It suddenly clicked in Steve’s head where he’d heard the name Holmes before, although he could be forgiven for wanting to forget some of the hours he’d spent sick in his very ill childhood.  Dr. Watson’s work had indeed been published across the pond but the illustrator hadn’t quite captured the two men accurately. They’d missed the warmth in Watson’s smile and the gleam of curiosity in Holmes’ eyes as he took in the group that had rescued the two of them.  And of course the illustrations had been of younger men, men who had belonged to a different era and had thought to have been safely retired and not tossed out into the muck and mess of a war.

(He almost thought that the illustrations had been of different people entirely because he could see the proper shape, but as an artist himself he could tell that the model’s used for the drawings had been close but not close enough.)

Suddenly Falsworth and Gabe’s reactions made a whole lot more sense. An Englishman and a linguist would recognize those two anywhere.

“Sure you are, and I’m the President. Prove it pal.” Bucky looked more curious than anything, although he was wise enough to duck the swat Gabe sent his way and the scandalized look Monty threw at him. Dugan met Steve’s eyes in the mirror in a look that said _“Do I need to pull this vehicle over?”_ while Morita turned around from the front seat to better watch what was about to go down.

Watson merely laughed and gestured to his friend to handle this one, leaning his head back against the canvas of the moving vehicle.

“Judging by the phonemic split of your short ‘a’ pronunciation and your loss of ‘r’ sounds after vowels, in association with other linguistic oddities, you are most definitely an American from Brooklyn. Your riffle indicates sniper, but your actions shout best friend to the very patriotically dressed Captain next to you. After all, a sniper stays put but you threw yourself into the battle and very particularly put yourself between him and danger, despite his greater size and abilities. Furthermore, you called him Steve, while the others called him Captain Rogers or Cap, indicating a more familiar association. You consider the other men just as highly, as I noted you shoved the French one out of the way of a particularly pernicious piece of flying masonry while pushing the one in the bowler forward just enough to stop him from also sustaining injury. Should I go on? It’s a simple enough trick, but I do find that every once in a while it irks others, especially our American brethren.”

The vehicle was absolutely silent before all heck broke loose as the rest of the Commando’s alternately went for _wow-he-really-is-the-world-famous-detective_ and _what-do-you-know-about-me_ and _haha-he-really-got-you-Barnes_.

Steve merely leaned back and let the conversations wash over him as the detective continued to perform for his friends and the Doctor slyly kept an eye on the world’s only consulting detective and his closest friend. It was a shame that they were in the company of legends and all he really wanted was a hot bath and a good rest.

He was unsurprised when they returned to base and Peggy eyed their retrieved guests with the look of someone who knew exactly who they were and what mission they were on and swore the lot of them to secrecy, claiming that “no one could know what happened in that castle” with that polite yet firm British accent of her own. The pointed look she sent Dr. Watson was received gracefully as he nodded his acquiescence and Holmes snorted with bemusement at the look on his more linguistically talented friend’s face.

It had been almost comical how quickly the Commandos had taken to the Doctor and the Detective,  both of whom gracefully fielded questions ranging from “ _Can you figure out who’s been sneaking apples from the pantry because we sure can’t?”_  to “ _What really happened with the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant?”_  to “ _Are you going to publish more stories Dr. Watson?”_ during their short stay.

When the two were taken care of and ready to leave again, Steve was sad to see them go. There was something about the pair that had lightened the mood of the camp for the duration of their stay, even if they were there under assumed names and with disguises so paper thin, he was surprised people didn’t see past them.

Of course Steve was well aware with the idea that people saw what they wanted to see. He’d spent the majority of his life laboring under no delusions on that front. Although he had his own suspicions that Holmes had quietly been augmenting his disguises in an attempt to stay sharp and travel incognito among the soldiers. Given the man’s skill in disguises, he’d never really know.

And as for Dr. Watson, well, if the man wanted to pretend he was less than intelligent, his readers were the only one’s fooled.  

He never saw them again, although in the future, in a world so flipped and inverted as to be a funhouse mirror of that which he had once known, Steve had always found it funny that people thought that they weren’t real, that their literary agent had made them up, as surely as Harry Potter and Achilles and Luke Skywalker were figments of the imagination, fictional characters from a forgotten world.  

And if one day a story that was never meant to be told found its way into his bedroom, rolled up in twine and yellowed with age, but as clearly written as if the author himself was still there to laugh and tease gently, Steve merely smiled and thanked providence that Dr. Watson was as poorly behaved in regards to _not writing_ as all authors were.

(He also thanked Natasha, who had an odd way of finding things that never should have been but finding them nonetheless when those around her portrayed even a hint of melancholy.)


End file.
